The list of sacred things

A story of what happens when you let go

There are two kinds of “good days” with a toddler. There’s the “good day” where somehow, by the grace of some unseen force, your child actually want to flow with your plan for the day (going to the grocery store, stopping by the park, cooking dinner).

And then there’s the other, much more common “good day” when you throw every idea you had for the day out the window and just go with their flow.

This was the latter kind of good day.

Most of our weekends are like this, truth be told. It’s one of the few ways we can all completely de-stress from a week of schedules and the steroidal type of creativity that is involved in introducing anything that goes against our daughter’s flow that day— like wearing clothes or getting in a car.

On this particular day I had hoped we’d make it to the grocery store, but it wasn’t a dire situation. So when my daughter absolutely refused to get in her car seat, I caved like soil settling back down into a flower bed.

We wandered around the garden for an hour instead, visiting the bees and finding tiny buds of overwintered mint to eat. Then we ambled into the barn and she found her stroller.

For context, my daughter was never into stroller. Just like she was never into being wrapped in the moby, or held in a baby carrier (until she could face out), or carried in a hiking backpack...

Or I guess another way to put it is—none of those thing were in her flow.

So I was surprised when she got the stroller out and demanded a “ride”! I happily obliged, a part of me bemused to finally be having an experience that I had once hoped would be a part of our every day.

And so we strolled. All the way down our steep gravel road, until we could see the goats in the pasture down below, and then all the way back up, past the barn and our house, until we were puffing into the woods.

She loved it. And I did too.

It was one of those rare moments when things just worked. When there was a flow, and we were both in it, sailing happily downstream.

It was a warm day, the daffodil greens were just beginning to peek up from the soil. As we puffed up the hill past our house and into the woods we were both soaring on something distinctly sweet.

We passed the three big tulip poplars that I often call the Three Sisters and I pointed them out to her— “Look Iona, See those big trees? Aren’t they special? They’re older than us both. They are our elders.”

I say things like this a lot. Things I know might be beyond her ken at the moment, but that I hope carry the energy of reverence, curiosity and wonder I want for her in this world.

She was quiet for a second and then I heard a small voice pip out from the stroller—“Trees are sacred!”

I laughed and said, “That’s right! They are!”

And then she was off, as if she had breathed in some mirth floating in like pollen on the breeze. She began her list…

“Trees are sacred! Mama is sacred! Dada is sacred! Wolves are sacred! Coyotes are sacred!”

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” I replied.

And she continued, “The woods are sacred! Leaves are sacred! The sky is sacred!”

“They are!” I sang in chorus.

We had just reached the top of the hill and were getting ready to stroll back down when an airplane roared over head.

She exclaimed, not missing a beat, “Airplanes are sacred!”

And I’m not sure what it was about it.

The simply joy and certitude in her voice. The way there was no distinction between any one thing on her list. Her knowing that there never was any division between what is sacred and what isn’t. What is nature and what isn’t. What is beloved and what isn’t.

Or maybe it was just the relief of my exhaustion from the week, slowly washing away in this go-with-the-flow gift of a day— but I began to cry.

Nodding behind her with tears in my eyes and emotion thick in my throat, I replied, “That’s right sweetie. Airplanes are sacred. Everything is sacred. Everything.”

And I saw it, in the way I’m always hoping to see it.

I remembered it, in the way I’m always hoping to remember it.

The gravel was sacred. The walk was sacred.

The exhuastion from my week was sacred.

The hand-me-down stroller was sacred. The half eaten bag of pretzels. The yellow rain boots kicking in delight. The sun behind the ridge.

The plans I had for the day. The plans I let go of.

The walks we never took when she was younger.

The walk we were on now.

The paths that exist. The ones that close.

And the ones that open, only open, when you stop holding on so tightly and just let go.